Ziggurat Review

Ziggurat

Release: April 21, 2015
Publisher: Milkstone Studios
Developer: Milkstone Studios
Genre: Action, Role-playing
PEGI: 10+
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Dungeon crawling titles are becoming a weekly occurrence across PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One, and unfortunately we get more shovel ware than actual quality titles. So when something comes around that deserves to be raved about, we think it necessary to inform our readers of it. Ziggurat is that title. While there are a few things that we would have liked to see different, the game as a whole is a wonderful, dungeon crawling experience.

There is nothing long about your quest in ZIggurat; in fact, it will be over be for you are probably ready for it to be over. However, the labyrinthine that you work through are randomly generated, which means you won’t ever play through the same mazes and puzzles more than once. This is the appeal, and this is what will make you come back time and time again.

You start off as a fairly humble wizard, fresh out of school! Ok, not school but you have very few tools at your disposal and your mana pool might as well be non existent. However, what you fight early on is minimal, and before you know it you will be armed with staffs and wands that do all kinds of different things, including a staff that shoots beetles and a magma rifle!

The game is set up as a series of continual rooms. Enter one and you will be trapped within to fight whatever comes your way. Often rooms will have traps or puzzles that need to be completed, and you will also experience some oddities. For example, on room might double the damage you take (or receive) while others will turn everything into pixels! It’s a unique mechanic that works a lot better than it sounds.

With an increase in enemy frequency and size comes added bonuses for the wizard as well. Each enemy you defeat or chest you find will award you with items and gems. You level up as you go along allowing the wizard to gain new abilities and perks. These obviously will aid you in upcoming combat encounters, and all of a sudden, dealing with enemies who deal double damage isn’t as daunting of a task.

With so much going on within each room, a few graphical issues and frame rate drops is somewhat expected, especially as this is coming from a small developer. For the most part, the graphics look really great, but are marred when you experience – at times – frequent drops in quality. These moments can be incredibly frustrating, but rarely ever last long. Sometimes, the odd frame rate drop will be the death of you, but this happened so infrequently with myself that I wouldn’t expect it yourself if you play for long periods of time.

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